


True Self, Without Form

by Byacolate



Category: overwatch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fusion, Fusion in a Canon Setting, Gem Fusion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Temporary Character Death, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-17 16:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9333578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: Death is whimsical today.





	1. Chapter 1

Things go south, quite literally, with a bang.

 

It happens so fast. A crack from afar, and the barest flash of violet on a distant conveyor belt. Volskaya is as frigid as it has always been, but Genji's hands don't shake for the cold.

 

It had been a quick sweep of the facility, a formality after a successful mission. The rest of the team awaits the aircraft carrier and their departure from the hotel in the city center.

 

There's no backup. They were doomed from the start.

 

Still, Genji calls it in, switching channels with shaking fingers, and the rest are on their way, thirty minutes out through traffic, twenty-three for Tracer on foot, but…

 

But Zenyatta is their only healer, and Genji knows better.

 

“Come, Master,” he gasps, heaving Zenyatta’s form along to duck behind the cover of a guard post, “come, I have you, I…” His throat clicks as he swallows, tucking Zenyatta’s twitching body away in the alcove beneath a set of stairs to assess the damage.

 

Mondatta’s body rests in Nepal, high up in the temple surrounded by candles, his favorite incense, flowers from the local children. Genji had accompanied Zenyatta to pay their respects, years ago, and while Zenyatta meditated with a hand to his brother’s chassis, Genji had seen the injury. While the exit wound was tidied and repaired, there had been no reparations to his otherwise pristine faceplate; the Shambali had wished to keep sight of their fallen brother exactly as he was, the familiarity of his face. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the shot was clean - almost pristine. A single, smooth hole in the center of his forehead. The bullet had destroyed the core of Mondatta’s AI into shrapnel, but all of the havoc wrought, all of the little shattered bits of what made Mondatta, stayed hidden behind the serene alloy of his face and that one neat little hole.

 

Zenyatta is allowed no such delicacy. The left half of his face plate is reduced to a jagged mess of chrome, his cranium leaking inductor oil. The fluid flows over Genji’s fingers as he presses Zenyatta’s face to his shoulder, fumbling as fastidiously as he’s able with a group of exposed wires.

 

The shot wasn’t made with a normal bullet; Genji finds it lodged within the nest of wires, pinching and clinging with a hundred subtle, tiny metallic claws. Zenyatta makes a faint sound of distress when Genji tries to dislodge it, his whole body convulsing when Genji’s knuckle knocks at a nerve center. “Forgive me,” he chokes out, pulling the bullet from the sparking synapses of Zenyatta’s wiring.

 

“Gen...ji…”

 

Genji drops the oil-soaked bullet to the floor and cradles Zenyatta to him, the harsh wet panting of his breath fogging the inside of his visor.

 

"Don't go, Zenyatta," he pleads, pushing his forehead against the crown of Zenyatta's head. "You can’t… I can’t lose _you._ Please."

 

"Peace," Zenyatta buzzes, his voice box dipping, crackling with static. Fizzling out. With jerky half-movements he takes Genji's hand and brings it to his chest. "Do not be-be dis… couraged," he manages around little staticy pops. "My cha-cha-chassis... would you..."

 

"Yes." Hastily, but deft with focus, Genji's hands work as Zenyatta's cannot and he unlocks the mechanism of his chest plate. He’s watched Zenyatta perform self-maintenance, but it had seemed rude to stare too closely, and so Genji is only half as familiar with Zenyatta’s inner workings as he could have been. He won’t forgive himself for this ignorance if it fails Zenyatta now. He all but wrenches his own face plate off to give himself an unhindered view. “Tell me, Master. Tell me what to do.”

 

His voice box emits a familiar hum that would have been a comfort to hear, if it didn’t drag on several seconds longer than normal. “My-my-my Genji,” he sighs, drawing his fingertips up the back of Genji’s hand. Oil trickles down the pistons of his neck. Genji swallows.

 

“Zenyatta, please focus. I need to know what - what you're trying to tell me.”

 

“Take thi-thi-thi-this,” Zenyatta slurs, the _s_ still hissing as he guides Genji’s hand to a silver-coated box at the core of his chassis.

 

“What is it?” Genji asks, flattening his palm when Zenyatta presses it closer.

 

“In my corpor-or-oreal state, it is a-a-a-all that I am. Take it now, Genji.” His body convulses as one by one, the blue lights on his forehead begin to fade. “And I will be with you. Take it now, be-before -”

 

Genji doesn’t hesitate, despite his misgivings and all his fears. He doesn’t have to. Zenyatta himself curves his fingers inside and presses two buttons on either side of the box, and it pops out with a click. Before Genji has time to say goodbye, his limbs go slack. Catching his hand as it slips from his chest, Genji brings it to his forehead and gasps, curling the silent form of his master closer.

 

“I have you,” he swears, moments and decades and eons later as the pulse of Tracer’s chronal accelerator and her frantic calls grow near. Delicately, he rests Zenyatta’s hand in his lap and pulls the box from Zenyatta’s chassis. “I have you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

There’s no prying Genji from Zenyatta’s dormant vessel. The flight back to Gibraltar is a somber, silent one. Lena embraces her mourning in an instant, but she’s practical; she collected the bullet and the casing from the conveyor lift for analysis. She’s clearly torn between giving Genji his space and seeking to share their grief. Genji says nothing to encourage either, stowed away in the back of the carrier with Zenyatta in his lap.

 

Hana isn’t half so delicate. She sits heavily beside Genji, a travel packet of hot pink tissues shared between them. She uses hers to stem the flow of tears from her face; he uses his to quietly clean the oil from Zenyatta’s gears and pistons.

 

“He can be fixed,” he tells Winston the moment they land. A small team greets them at the landing pad, but Genji only has eyes for the scientist. Were Torbjörn present, Genji would have approached him first. He has no doubt that he eventually may need to when Winston’s eyes go soft. Sympathetic. Sympathy won’t bring light and life back to Zenyatta’s form. What Genji needs is a diligent pair of hands.

 

“I need to have a look at him,” Winston says, and seems to know better than to try to take Zenyatta from his arms.

 

He’s a little less certain when Genji rests Zenyatta along one of Angela’s examination tables in Winston’s lab and just… stays.

 

“This is going to take awhile, Genji.”

 

“I will stay.”

 

Winston clears his throat a little awkwardly. “Well… that’s fine, but there’s nothing I can do for him overnight.”

 

Genji’s folds his arms over his chest. Inhales. He looks down at Zenyatta’s serene face plate, the gash of shrapnel-sharp metal. Exhales. “I understand. I will… take my leave shortly. Winston, before I go…” He slips his hand into a hidden pocket in Zenyatta’s red sash, drawing out the small silver box. “What can you tell me about this?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 _This programming is a… little outdated. But it was always meant to power and inhabit a body. It isn’t compatible with any of my computer systems, and we don’t have any spare Omnics lying... uh…_ Winston had winced. _Wow. Sorry. Ahem. Point of the matter is, Zenyatta’s core AI isn’t like Athena’s. I could modify it if you give me time, but - yeah, I didn’t think you’d like the sound of that. What he’d need is both an inhabitable form, and the… the machinery to… Huh. Huh. Now there’s a thought._

 

Genji had stuck around well into the evening - long enough to plan and receive instruction, for Winston and Angela to pry into his parts, making adjustments, theorizing in their nigh-incomprehensible scientific jargon. But despite Winston’s protests, he didn’t intend to stick around for the execution. If it didn’t work, his grief was a private thing, and he could always return to sit by Zenyatta’s body for however long it took.

 

And if it did…

 

Hanzo is waiting outside the door of the room he shares with Zenyatta, brow furrowed. He opens his mouth, but Genji cuts him off with a gesture.

 

“Not now, Brother.”

 

Hanzo’s frown deepens. “I know I have never been… a place of solace for you, but -”

 

“I am not grieving.” Genji opens his door. “There is nothing to grieve. Don’t give me that look. There’s no time to explain, but I - I will. I just need time.”

 

Hanzo nods hesitantly, and Genji knocks his knuckles against his brother’s shoulder before he disappears into his room.

  
The setting sun in the clear sky casts a bright orange glow from their window, something Zenyatta had always loved. Genji gives himself a moment to open the window and settle himself. Breathe in. Breathe out. He cradles the box, turning it over in his hands with the full knowledge that he, quite literally, holds that nearest and dearest to him in the palm of his hand.

 

Gingerly, he inserts one chip of a wireless data transmitter gifted by Winston into the port on the side of the silver box. Far more carelessly, Genji opens the long slender hatch along his forearm and slots the second transmitter chip into his wrist.

Finally, he caresses the subtle power node nestled in a small cubular divot in the box before he presses it in.

 

And waits.

 

And… waits.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

Genji jerks awake at his desk. The room’s gone dark, and with a blink, his visor reads the time - 23:34. But Genji doesn’t notice the time. Genji doesn’t notice the crick in his neck or the chill from the open window.

 

All he can comprehend is the new blue tint to his visor, and the foreign line of code at the bottom of his vision.

 

“... Master?” he breathes. The code doesn’t falter. Nothing in his vision changes.

 

However, somewhere deeper in, rattling around in his helmet like a radio signal weakly received, comes a sound. Static. Humming.

 

It carries on, and Genji scarcely dares to breathe for the next ten, fifteen, twenty minutes in the uncomfortable desk chair. Because whatever signal he’s getting is growing stronger with every second, every heartbeat.

 

And then, ever so faintly, the crystal clear hum warbles down to silence.

 

Genji grips the side of the desk, eyes locked on the line of code. He swallows.

 

“... Zenyatta?”

 

A gentle pulse, like a shiver, but warmer, runs through him from his head to his toes. It’s like being bathed in sunlight. It’s like stepping into a hot shower after a walk in the rain.

 

It’s like the celestial embrace of the Iris.

  
[Oh,] comes a sound so deeply nestled within Genji’s systems that he could believe it was his own. [How… _wonderful._ ]


	2. Chapter 2

[I must admit, this was not the outcome I had anticipated when I gave you the source of my AI.]

 

Genji seats himself again, basking in the strange but not unwelcome sensation of a foreign presence in his systems.

 

"What else could I do but preserve you?" he implores. "There was no alternative."

 

[I had not expected death, but dormancy. Instead, you have shared your body with me, Genji.]

 

"Oh, is that strange?"

 

A flood of mirth, warm and golden, spreads through the deepest part of him, and when laughter erupts from Genji's mouth he knows it isn't just his own.

 

[Oh... Interesting.]

 

Genji reaches up to touch his chest, but the action barely registers as one he's made himself. Almost as quickly, his hand falls. "Hah."

 

[Genji, our systems seem to be...]

 

"In harmony?"

 

[Entwined.]

 

Genji feels hesitation that isn't entirely his prickle at the back of his mind. "That was the intention."

 

[I have nearly reached full integration. Genji, you are certain sharing autonomy does not cause you discomfort?]

 

He hopes his own light amusement touches Zenyatta in the way Zenyatta's feelings flow through him. "It's you, Master. It could be no one else."

 

Slowly, and with great deliberation, Genji’s body - the body that they share - stands. The sensation is not entirely foreign; similar to being lost in thought and allowing the body to move in autopilot. But he doesn’t feel disconnected or fuzzy; Genji is present in the movement of his body. He is ceding control.

  
It is… undeniably strange. But it’s also far more interesting than carrying Zenyatta as in immobile passenger, complacent and stagnant. 

 

Zenyatta was integral in making Genji’s body a home again. The least Genji can do is return the favor.

 

[You have given me a great gift. I will endeavor to make this experience harmonious.]

 

"As we have always been."

 

[Have we always?] His visor pings, not unlike the sound of one of Zenyatta's orbs lying dormant in a box on Genji's desk. [I recall a discordant beginning.]

 

He laughs, wetly. "Then allow me a moment to misremember."

 

Genji unlatches and lowers his face plate to the desk, pressing the heel of a palm to his eye. A flicker of  color catches his eye, and Genji looks into the lowered visor.

 

Soft blue light ripples over the screen in waves, again, and again, and again. Not unlike a pulse. Not unlike  _ his _ pulse.

 

"I will carry you with me as long as it takes, Master."

 

[That is a comfort to me. I hope to prove symbiotic with your systems.]

 

"Considering what you have done for my soul," he sniffs, dabbing at his eyes once more before lifting the visor back to his face, "I am optimistic."

 

Genji stays up with Zenyatta to watch the sunrise through new and most familiar eyes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

“You know I can’t cook.”

 

The blue sheen over his visor ripples with the sensation of Zenyatta’s amusement as it melds into Genji’s. [And you know that I can.]

 

The cast iron skillet before them sizzles with oil Genji knows he’ll be buffing out of his chrome for days, probably. He cedes control to Zenyatta, who crushes a handful of garlic with the side of his knife and drops it all into the pan. A heady wave of its rich scent fills his lungs through the filters of his visor, and deep within him, he can  _ feel _ Zenyatta sigh.

 

[How wonderful!]

 

“Don’t you have olfactory functions, Master?”

 

[I did.] Genji leans forward and takes a deeper whiff. [But now I have an organic basis of comparison.]

 

“If you like this, we should find you an onion.”

 

[An excellent idea, Genji!]

 

They’re in the middle of dicing apples and engaging in a polite debate over the likelihood of becoming tastemakers when Genji notices a presence halted in the kitchen doorway. Integrating with Zenyatta has not heightened his perception - in fact, it might be dampening Zenyatta’s. Or maybe Hanzo just has very light feet.

 

“Good morning, Brother,” Genji calls, saluting Hanzo with one hand while Zenyatta works on the apple with the other. Hanzo stares at him for a long moment, and whatever he’s thinking, he’s thinking it so rigorously that Genji can practically see steam coming from his ears.

 

“Good morning,” Hanzo returns, slowly entering the room. He nods toward the stove. “I see you are… sauteing apples.”

 

“I’m about to win an argument,” Genji snorts, turning back to watch Zenyatta scoop the apples up and dump them en masse into the skillet. Hanzo clears his throat before he approaches.

 

“You are in… high spirits this morning. And your visor...” He looks back to see Hanzo staring at him with unveiled concern. Amusement tinged with sympathy floods his system.

 

“Yes, about that -”

 

Hanzo holds up a hand. “Please, Genji,” he says, voice firm. “I was not able to… offer you comfort last night. I accept that you may… need your space, at this time, but I am… always here.” He rests a hand on Genji’s shoulder. “For you.”

 

[Oh, Genji…]

 

“Hanzo, I’m touched. But really.” He pats Hanzo’s hand. Rather, Zenyatta pats Hanzo’s hand. “Everything is fine. More than fine.” Hanzo’s face falls, and Genji hastens to explain, “Zenyatta is alright.”

 

“Genji, I was there yesterday. I saw -”

 

“Zenyatta’s body is…” Genji swallows. “Perhaps irreparably damaged. But _Zenyatta_ was not.” He places a hand over his chest, and Hanzo takes a moment - his eyes flicker from the blue of Genji’s visor, to the hand idly tending to the apples while Genji faces him - and narrows his eyes.

 

“... You must be joking.”

 

Genji leans in a little, clasping Hanzo’s shoulder the moment Hanzo drops his hand. “Brother… Zenyatta is _within_ me.”

 

Any emotion on Hanzo’s face wipes clean, and he looks approximately three seconds away from knocking Genji’s knees out from under him like when they were boys. Instead, he turns up his nose and cooly opens the tea cupboard, his voice frosty. “Sweating fruits was his idea, I take it.”

 

“It is the  _ scent,” _ Genji says - well. It comes from Genji’s mouth. This would be the first time Zenyatta’s ever used his voice. He supposes it’s theirs now. “Have you ever smelled something so fascinating?”

 

Hanzo blinks at him before nodding slowly. “Zenyatta. I am… relieved to see you well.”

 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Genji laughs, and Zenyatta forks all the bits of apple and onion and garlic from the skillet onto a plate. Skepticism and optimism clash in Genji’s mind when he realizes what’s about to happen. Hanzo chuckles darkly as he retrieves a box of loose leaf from the cabinet.

 

“Zenyatta, I don’t think... I have never utilized my taste in such a way - New experiences transform us - I’m not sure this is a transformation worth _making_ -”

 

“Where is your spirit of adventure, Genji?” Hanzo asks loftily, setting up the electric kettle. Genji narrows his eyes at his brother, even as Zenyatta’s sense of camaraderie lights within him.

 

“Where did your concern go, my brother? It was here only a moment ago, but it seems to have fled.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hanzo sniffs, flicking the kettle’s switch. “Zenyatta, if fried produce is to your liking, I believe Doctor Zhou regularly imports durian.”

 

Genji blanches. “Hanzo…”

 

“I’m sure if you asked her very nicely, she would be happy to part with one.” Hanzo smirks to himself, the bastard.  


 

Manfully, Genji stuffs his face with pan-fried garlic and onion apples before they decide as an entity that perhaps there are better combinations to be sought. And Genji sets to seeking them in Mei-Ling’s wing of the base.

 

“I need a new brother,” Genji sighs to himself, while Zenyatta pulses with joy inside of him.

 

[A hasty thought. The one you have is very thoughtful.]

 

"He is something," Genji mutters, and knocks on Mei-Ling's door.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a sad fic. Pinkie promise.
> 
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> Tumblr: [wardencommando](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).  
> Battle.net ID: byacolate#1589


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